Sacred Dance & Poetry to Embody the Feminine Path of Creation
“Don’t go back to sleep…”
There is a call at dawn, a whisper from the soul, inviting you to awaken to your deepest knowing and move in harmony with the divine rhythm of life.
Join sacred dancer and Rumi translator Banafsheh Sayyad for a powerful online experience where sacred dance and mystical poetry unite in a journey of personal transformation and collective evolution, rooted in the soft power of the feminine.
You’ll experience Rumi’s original Persian poetry, translated by a native speaker who also embodies the sacred dance lineage from which his words flowed. You’ll be guided to embody one of Rumi’s poems as a living prayer, awakening your inner stillness, strength, and intuitive wisdom through a moving meditation.
> You will learn about the healing essence of whirling, the sacred dance that opened Rumi’s heart to divine revelation.
> You will explore how feminine energy can ground us in love during these turbulent times, guiding us not to toughen up, but to access soft power: presence, grace, and aligned action.
>You will discover how sacred movement becomes a portal to your truth, a tool for transformation, and a path to manifesting the world your soul knows is possible.
This is a remembrance.
A return to softness.
A reclamation of power through love.
If you are ready to move from fear into flow, from grief into grace, and from separation into soulful embodiment, this event is for you.
Free to attend. Come as you are. Leave transformed.
Join us for a deep immersion into sacred dance and the mystical wisdom of Rumi.
Member
Banafsheh - Dance of OnenessEvent MemberIranian-born master dance artist and transformational teacher, Banafsheh communicates the universal message of Sufi mysticism and Divine Feminine wisdom in a passionate yet serenely meditative way. Her dance is an interplay between trance and directed movement, precise yet abandoned and unrestrained. Her explosive yet fluid movement is sensual and ritualistic, uniting the feminine and masculine energies, body and soul, light and dark in a marriage of opposites. She invokes the ancient roots of dance as devotion, prayer and adoration while blazing an original trail in contemporary dance with her masterly fusion of high level dance technique and spirituality.
Her mesmerizing offering of the timeless Divine Feminine inside a contemporary gypsy dervish beckons all to engage, serve, exalt and honor our sexuality as sacred. She is one of the few bearers of authentic Persian dance in the world, an innovator of Sufi dance previously only performed by men and a pioneer in contemporary Persian dance, all of which characterize the form she has created called Dance of Oneness® geared towards empowering women and men through sacred embodiment.
Internationally known for her innovative movement vocabulary and high artistic and educational standards, she draws from her extensive background in Sufism, Persian dance and ritual, Tai Chi and flamenco to present a new form, rooted in tradition yet universal.
Banafsheh’s movement is comprised in part by the Persian alphabet translated into gestures and movement, which when put together dances out words and poetic stanzas, mostly taken from the works of the great mystic poet, Rumi, whom she has studied extensively, resonating with his fierce yet gentle essence that beckons each and everyone to break through conformity and limitation to find their individual glory.
Banafsheh comes from a long lineage of pioneering performing artists. Her father, the legendary Iranian filmmaker, theater director and actor, Parviz Sayyad, hailed as the Charlie Chaplin of Iran, is the most famous Iranian of his time. Banafsheh is a recipient of the prestigious James Irvine Foundation grant in Dance. She holds an MFA in Dance from UCLA where she taught Persian dance. She has studied with some of the great masters in dance and choreography including Antonia Rojos, Victoria Marks, David Rousseve and Donna Uchizono. Also an acupuncturist, she draws from the Taoist view of the internal functioning of the body to uncover the healing, rejuvenating aspects of movement. Banafsheh’s solo and ensemble work with her dance company, NAMAH has been presented extensively in festivals and by dance presenters in North America, Europe and Australia where she has gained tremendous audience and critical acclaim. She recently performed at the closing night of the Festival of Sacred Arts in Madrid at Teatros del Canal. Her 2011 dance film In the Fire of Grace with author and scholar, Andrew Harvey traces Rumi’s journey of the Soul in dance.
